Freedom Force

Moby ID: 6047
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Freedom Force is a real-time tactical role-playing game which allows you to create and customize your own superheroes.

Along with the ability to create your own skins, names and super power attributes, you can take your team of superheroes out in the town to defeat countless enemies, improving the experience points of your character. All of the buildings and items in each city are destructible and you can throw most items at your enemy.

The single player campaign starts with you taking control of Frank Stiles. Frank overhears a conversation between two scientists about a secret experiment. The scientists discover Frank and leave him to die by a glowing statue. Luckily for Frank, the statue turns him into Minuteman, and now you must stop the scientists from getting away.

As you dive deeper into the story, you will gain teammates, each with their own special powers, and even more deadly enemies to defeat.

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Credits (Windows version)

211 People (160 developers, 51 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 71 ratings with 5 reviews)

An action-packed romp through a 1960's comic book world.

The Good
There is so much to like about Freedom Force that it is hard to know where to begin. The graphics are outstanding. The characters and settings are colorful and detailed and the animation is well done for the most part. You can easily zoom in and out which makes for some spectacular looking screenshots, especially with the added "action balloons" that say "Zap!", "Whoosh!", "Krak!", etc. just like you were in an animated comic book.

The sound is very well done too, with a good variety of interesting music and sound effects. The voice acting is generally excellent -- it sounds like it is straight out of those old Adam West Batman TV shows.

The gameplay is where Freedom Force really shines, though. The hot keys allow you to pause the game or play in slow motion, and most attacks and movement can be done entirely with the mouse. The enemies are varied enough so you don't get tired of fighting the same foe, and there are a wide variety of strategies that can be used to defeat your enemies, especially since on most missions you can select the heroes (or build your own) that you want to use. Even if you don't use a variety of powers it is still fun to fight just with found objects such as thrown park benches or uprooted lamp posts.

Character development is pretty well done. The built-in heroes are well-balanced and have a variety of powers to play with and customize, and if you get bored or frustrated with the built-in heroes you can make your own with the easy to use character creator. If you really want to customize your hero you can download additional hero meshes and skins from web sites and use them for your characters or even design your own if you have the proper tools.

The Bad
There are a wide variety of ways you can build your heroes, but some abilities are a lot more effective for the character point cost than others. For example, you can complete almost all of the scenario missions with a high-speed guy with a medium damage extreme stun attack. Some statistics are not very useful in comparison to others. Because the hero abilities are not well balanced in some cases (especially the Agility stat vs. Speed or Energy) the most effective characters all tend to kill the same way - by stunning.

Another problem with the game is multiplayer. You can only do deathmatch style play, and it is difficult to control a team of players since you cannot pause as effectively as you can in single player. The worst problem with multiplayer is that there aren't enough point restrictions -- you should be able to restrict the point costs of powers and ability scores as well as the total cost of the hero to keep people from designing boring one-dimensional heroes just to win multiplayer. It is also dissapointing that some of the more interesting powers like Cloning and Cloak of Shadows do not work in multiplayer.

The other problems with the game are minor gameplay issues such as only being able to use melee attacks when on the ground, and not being able to jump or fly when carrying objects, no matter what the strength of the character or weight of the object you are carrying.

The Bottom Line
Freedom Force is an action packed romp through a 1960's comic book. The gameplay is similar to other 3rd person squad-based games such as Fallout Tactics or the combat portions of Baldur's Gate 2, but a lot more refined, especially because the camera can move and the graphics are rendered in 3D not 2D. The environment is fully destructable and usable, so if you are surrounded by a circle of bat-wielding thugs, just pull up the nearest lamp post and bash away. The game features a single-player mode with a wonderfully campy plot and well designed heroes and bad guys. The multiplayer mode allows you to battle with premade or custom heroes in a variety of settings.

Windows · by Droog (460) · 2002

If Jack Kirby had been a programmer, this would be his game...

The Good
The game is incredibly true to its subject matter, featuring Jack Kirbyesque art and graphics throughout. The environments are fully destructible, and the single-player game feels VERY much like one is playing through a series of 1960s Marvel-style comic adventures!

The Bad
If you AREN'T a fan of Jack Kirby style 1960s comics, you may not like this game. It doesn't have much to offer the Spawn generation, and its "campy" feel may cross over to "oghod this is so corny" in the hands of players who can't get into the proper mood. The FFEditor and patch is an excellent tool for modifying the game; it introduces a "danger room" mod that lets you play heroes and villains from the game in any environment from the game, and allows the use of custom heroes and villains as well. Unfortunately, this terrific tool is only available online; it didn't ship with the game sigh... Multiplayer is weak, weak, weak, being largely a matter of who can point and click fastest; the "pause and plan" feature that makes the single-player game so appealing just isn't there in multiplayer.

The Bottom Line
It's a great "classic superhero comic" romp, and loads of fun. You can't really beat the price. The patch and Editor tool are available online. If you like your comics Kirby flavored, dive in!

Windows · by Dr.Bedlam (55) · 2002

An Amazing, Incredible, and Smart Way to Play the Comix!

The Good
Style: I have to say the best part of this game is the way it sets itself up and shows off its comic style. It really is best when it plays it over-the-top, which it does often. The bad voice acting, rich colors, goofy cast of characters, over-dramatic story, ridiculous naming conventions (Liberty City, Minute Man and Liberty boy, Nuclear Winter) really create a great caricature of the classic comics (don't know? Try some Marvel Essentials to see how true to the original they are.) All these separate parts come together in a masterwork of kitschy ness and camp, highly enjoyable.

Game play: The game plays similar to Baldur's Gate, except on a smaller scale. The player selects the stock heroes, or their own home brew. Then they are given various goals such as defeating all the enemies or protect people. The game allows pausing and lets the user give commands, making it somewhat phase based. This is a strong formula that is highly involving, making time pass quickly as you go about your heroic deeds. And you have a lot of actions to choose from, such as attacking with various powers, picking up the local items to attack, such as cars and light posts, finding various canisters to boost power or heal. And the game is well balanced with the stock heroes, as none are too powerful to fight on their own, and each is good in some situations, but terrible in others. Building the right team matters.

Another aspect of the game play is building heroes. You can build almost any kind of hero you like with the game, from super-men to psychic brainiacs, it’s almost all there. And you have plenty of models to use, as they can easily be downloaded on the net. Even better, you can add user made versions of your favorite comic heroes.

The A.I. is appropriate and challenging. You will find most villains do what would be expected, though there are some issues.

Interface: The interface is elegant simplicity. You can click on any place or person, and an appropriate menu will appear in context to that item. The list of items is easy to read and makes sense in the light of you character. They even switch as you change heroes, but keep the item in focus.

Music: The scores are excellent and never feel repetitive. The music fits the mood of the enemy and adds to the atmosphere of pure camp. You'd think this stuff would be standard stock of any super hero cartoon.

The Bad
Game Play: Despite the involvement of the system, you will find those little annoyances that drive you crazy. When you pause and select actions for your heroes, sometimes they just don't respond, so you lose time having to figure out they aren't doing anything and get them to act again. Also, the focus on enemies does not shift to a new enemy, so if you click on attack another enemy, they attack the same enemy. And many times, you will be your own worst enemy as you heroes can hit each other or knock them selves out if they are too close to their own blasts.

Also, this game it not fast paced, as you will find yourself pausing many times to keep up with the flow. You really will have a hard time navigating menus in real time, a problem in the multiplayer.

And the creation system, while thick with many options, has the usual problem of some powers being too powerful, easily creating one trick ponies to dominate the single player and multiplayer games. This was nerfed somewhat in patches, but issues still exist.

Bugs: There aren't too many, but one exists where the characters with get stuck under the ground.

Multi-Player: This is the weakest point of this game. As mentioned, certain powers allow dominance in games, and there is no pause, so it’s a much speedier game lending to beam and smashing the main course of action. There is some co-op with the added danger room, but it only goes so far.

The Bottom Line
Freedom Force is a strategy / RPG where you can create heroes to fight villains in a 60's style comic book send off. Freedom Force is somewhat mis-classed, in that it’s more of a tactics game than a role-playing game. It has the ability to create all kind of heroes using stats, but it relies on small maps with simple objectives in a beat the other guy before he beats you strategy. It could easily have become repetitive except for the kitschy comic book style that just leaves you grinning and somewhat nostalgic for the old comic, and the old games. Overall, if you are the nerd type or love a challenging strategy game, this one is for you.

Windows · by Dwango (298) · 2005

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (Issue #148) - #9 overall in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Strategy Game of the Year
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Best Story of the Year
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Best Art Direction of the Year
    • September 2006 (Issue #266) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • GameSpy
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #50 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

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  • MobyGames ID: 6047
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Sciere, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 27, 2002. Last modified March 7, 2024.